How to Keep Chickens From being Bored

[chicknlove]

I'm planning on building a garden box in the chicken pin. I'm going to cover it with chicken wire so they can pick at the greens without digging them up I'm lookingfor stuff that might last threw the fall as this is a late in th

 

[Lacy Blues]

I found this plan for a compost bin. We are going to build it in the run as soon as the coop is finished!

http://www.instructables.com/id/Chicken-Powered-Three-Stage-Compost-Bin-Photos/

Boy, doesn't this give me some ideas! My husband will be thrilled. He calls me the "Sarah Winchester of chickendom!"

 

[Red Barn Farms]

My run area contains a 4 tier tree branch roost they enjoy sitting on in the afternoon. I provide them with a dust bathing area as well. They enjoy the head of cabbage I have hanging on a string and will eat it within 24 hours. I have a old wooden box they will lay in on occasion. Last but not least is that tree stump they peck on looking for termites. It's loaded with them!

Other than that my flocks seem happy all the time and they seem to amaze themselves just scratching around looking for bugs.

Their favorite time happens around 6 pm when I open the run area door and they all come out to free range until dusk when they go back inside and head for the roosts for the night.

 

[LakeBird]

I like the wooden bins like the ones shown at that link. A lot of people fashion them out of wire fencing, but the nice thing about the wooden ones is that the chickens can perch and rest on the top rims. In our yard, the shady area with the wooden compost bins is the favorite hang out area. They spend a lot of time picking through the compost and then resting/roosting on the rims.

How do you compost the chicken manure with the compost the chickens dig through?

 

[outdoorsii]

Their favorite time happens around 6 pm when I open the run area door and they all come out to free range until dusk when they go back inside and head for the roosts for the night.

See I had to quit doing that b/c the stupid juvenile foxes around here were coming around at dusk & right before dusk, thats when they got my whispytail leghorn , my favorite chicken b/c she never pooped on me - EVER!, b/c she always had to squat LOL, so she'd alwasy wait till I put her down!

 

[deedee1]

My youngest daughter is 8 now and she had one of the turtle sand pits when she was little so now that we have chickens, I moved the turtle out into the chicken run with sand in and a little food grade DE in it .. .sprinkle with a water can every now and then my gals they love it!!!! My big boy Toby he loves to stand on the turtle's head while the gals are doing their thing!!!

 

[ducklucky]

Don't you just hate that!!! )*&^ foxes. They're so beautiful but so dangerous for our birds. They only trick I have is to change around their "out" time, sometimes in AM, then PM, or mid day. You'll have to lure them back in of course, but find that grocery plastic bag with treats works every time. You have to confuse the critters, once they are used to the birds' time out, they'll be back. So sorry you lost your favorite, know how it feels. Had a RI Red rooster with 70 hens, and he gave his life protecting his flock from a fox. He was a gem, would jump into my arms. Gosh, I miss him too. Maybe set some live traps and get her out of there, or have a local trapper come in, we did that and he got 3 of the varmints. Sympathies...

 

[outdoorsii]

Don't you just hate that!!! )*&^ foxes. They're so beautiful but so dangerous for our birds. They only trick I have is to change around their "out" time, sometimes in AM, then PM, or mid day. You'll have to lure them back in of course, but find that grocery plastic bag with treats works every time. You have to confuse the critters, once they are used to the birds' time out, they'll be back. So sorry you lost your favorite, know how it feels. Had a RI Red rooster with 70 hens, and he gave his life protecting his flock from a fox. He was a gem, would jump into my arms. Gosh, I miss him too. Maybe set some live traps and get her out of there, or have a local trapper come in, we did that and he got 3 of the varmints. Sympathies...

Yea, I mean we even had a juvenile red fox come up a few months ago & it was the first one I'd seen in a long time b/c they are pretty rare to see around here, b/c the grey foxes run around mostly, unless the coyotes are there...but truthfully I'd almost rather have coyotes b/c they don't seem to be as stupid & sneaky as foxes, like they'll definately wait till after dark if they are gonna do anything...& my chickens are up at night, but foxes will do all their dirty work during anytime of the day...AWWWW I've heard of roosters protecting the flock like that, thats crazy..I wonder what a fox would do if it came upon a Jersey Giant Rooster..LOL, prolly crap his pants!!!!....

But yea we live on 5 acres (we used to be right outside the city limits of Little Rock, but now we're in them), but yea, my dad has shot some of the grey foxes, one of them at 10am, it was charging towards our chickens in the backyard, my mother was even outside watering the plants & she started yelling at it & yelling for my dad, & he got the .22 & got him SECONDS before he grabbed a chicken...that one was a juvenile one, b/c I would hope a full grown fox wouldn't be that stupid to hang around w/my crazy mom yelling at it like 50 feet away.

 

[Casey09]

[/quote]
How do you compost the chicken manure with the compost the chickens dig through? 
[/quote]

Chicky poo goes in the 2nd bin so its not going right to the garden but not getting eaten by chickens. It still has time to break down before going to planta!

 

[Lacy Blues]

Yea, I mean we even had a juvenile red fox come up a few months ago & it was the first one I'd seen in a long time b/c they are pretty rare to see around here, b/c the grey foxes run around mostly, unless the coyotes are there...but truthfully I'd almost rather have coyotes b/c they don't seem to be as stupid & sneaky as foxes, like they'll definately wait till after dark if they are gonna do anything...& my chickens are up at night, but foxes will do all their dirty work during anytime of the day...AWWWW I've heard of roosters protecting the flock like that, thats crazy..I wonder what a fox would do if it came upon a Jersey Giant Rooster..LOL, prolly crap his pants!!!!....

But yea we live on 5 acres (we used to be right outside the city limits of Little Rock, but now we're in them), but yea, my dad has shot some of the grey foxes, one of them at 10am, it was charging towards our chickens in the backyard, my mother was even outside watering the plants & she started yelling at it & yelling for my dad, & he got the .22 & got him SECONDS before he grabbed a chicken...that one was a juvenile one, b/c I would hope a full grown fox wouldn't be that stupid to hang around w/my crazy mom yelling at it like 50 feet away.

When I lived in California, I SAW a coyote jump out of the tall grass and grab one of my young hens. I just happened to be looking in that direction or I would have missed it. He was there and gone in a flash!